Vows and Letting Go
by Madrigal of Rose
Summary: This is a short one shot about what Neal experienced during his Ordeal.


**A/N: This story has been one on my mind for a while. I recalled in Squire when Neal stepped out of the Chamber of Ordeal that he had been crying but was otherwise uninjured. And somewhere I felt that there was good reason for his tears and that he needed to Let Go. I apologize in advance for typos. I wrote this quickly and I know if I go back over it I'll change the raw integrity of what I have written.**

The iron door closed behind him and immediately his mind started to recite a roll call of the squires in somewhat recent history that had failed to survive this room. Three years before two of the squires had failed, one dead and one imprisoned. And he had known them and had known what wickedness had lain beneath the surface of their smiling, confident veneers. He had known simply because of one young woman, Keladry of Mindelan. And he had known because they had turned that wickedness on her.

As if sensing his thoughts, the Chamber of Ordeal roared to life around him. There was Kel standing with her face unreadable in a gown for dinner on her first day of page training. And there was Joren of Stone Mountain offering to help her. Neal could not speak up, could not offer himself to her as her sponsor now. The Ordeal consisted of not talking, something he knew would cause him to fail and it would be his hardest task. But there in front of him, he left Wyldon to assign Joren to Kel as a sponsor. The scene rippled to Kel, friendless, fighting it out alone through her first year. None of those she had claimed as tentative friends that first year came to her aid as she fought against Joren, Zahir, Vinson, and Garvey. With her as their whipping page, the others were left alone and left her alone. And he himself was forced to turn a blind eye. Then the scene rippled again to Kel as she packed up her things at the end of a long year, unable to stay. He felt the tears spring to his eyes as he read the bitter defeat on her face. She had failed, and had failed because he had failed her.

The scene changed again and now he recognized the day they had fought the Hillmen. He had frozen in the face of danger and he was doing so again. Part of him screamed. He was going to die like his brothers. He was going to leave his father and mother to bury another child. He was going to fail the noble house of Queenscove by not even making it to his third year as a page. Arrows flew by them and he looked to Faleron, going into his fourth year as a page and the senior page in charge of their group. He was just as frozen in place. Then he looked to Kel, she had saved them all that day, her brain cool in the heat of battle. But now she just stood there as the men thundered down on them on ragged looking mounts. An arrow pierced Merric's shoulder and the scream echoed in his mind. He needed to break free of this panic now! What had saved them that day? The path up to the cave. He looked back and signaled where they should go. He used signals to send them up, but then there was Kel standing with her spears as a vicious looking Hillman rode down on her. She was cut lengthwise across the chest and crumpled to the ground like she was made of paper. Somewhere inside he knew he had to let her die at the hands of the Hillman who now dismounted over the top of her, if he was to save the others. He retreated back, one step, and then another, leaving Kel to scream as the Hillman carved her up with merciless sweeps of his dirty blade.

The scene rippled but the screams continued on inside of his head. Other voices joined in the screaming. He heard them, his brothers, calling for him to save them. He heard his mother, his father, his sister. He heard Dom, his much beloved cousin and brother in all but name. He heard Roald. They all cried to him, begging him to save them. Begging him to have done more to have protected them. Above it all he heard Kel's terrible scream. He collapsed to the ground, covering his ears, pleading with the voices silently. Tears streamed down his face now. Each single one burned like molten lead as it slid down his face to his chin and then to the floor.

The silence was deafening when the screams did stop. All he could hear was his own ragged and shuddering breaths. There was nothing he could do to save the dead. His brothers were dead and he could not save them. But he could finish out his Ordeal and protect the others from whatever they were crying about. He would protect Kel, his parents, his sister, his cousin, his Prince. He was a double threat, Gifted and soon to be a knight. Something lit inside of him like the god lights that danced in the skies of the north on dark nights. Pulsating, flowing, bright, beautiful. He embraced it and shifted his knees under his body and forced himself to stand.

Standing before him now stood Kel as she was, dressed as she had been the day before when she had done everything in her power to keep his mind off of his Ordeal. Her mousy brown hair looked soft as it hung down just past her ears. Her hazel eyes caught some mysterious light and held his. Her usually expressionless lips were turned up into a smile, a smile just for him. She held her hands out to him. This was the fantasy he had been having often as of late. This was where he went to her, told her that he desired her, and kissed her soundly. No, not desired, loved. He loved her fiercely and in the way that he had never loved any of the other women he had mooned over. He didn't write poems to her. He didn't draw half recognizable pictures of her in the darkness of his room. He didn't even stare from afar. No, he watched her openly, and yearned for her to turn her face up to his. He spent his free time willing for things to be different. And now here she was, reaching out to him. Holding out her hands to take him in. Her eyes were alight with fiery passion and something that ran stronger than a love for a best friend. He took a step towards her, ready to embrace her, ready to kiss her as soundly as she deserved. But something, no someone brushed past him.

In all truth, he expected it to be Cleon when he looked up to see a shadowy figure taking Kel in his arms and doing exactly what he had planned to do. That would make sense, because Kel and Cleon were currently courting as best they could by letter while he was on the warfront and while she was wherever she had been and would be. They hadn't been lovers, he knew Kel was a maiden, but he also knew that Cleon had stolen kisses and had caused at least some sort of desire in Kel. But the build of the man was all wrong. He was smaller, but still slightly taller and more filled out than Neal. Through the shadow of a man, he could see the sparkling light in Kel's eyes telling him that this was who she truly loved. This was her soulmate. The love that radiated off of them wasn't the type that fizzled and died with distance or time. It was love in its purest essence and the kind that poets sought for inspiration. Somehow he knew this vision to be true. But the problem was, it wasn't him and it wasn't Cleon. He felt like a dagger was burying itself in his heart as he watched Kel belong to another so rightly, so perfectly. And then the image of the man solidified and the blade twisted. Dark hair, broad shoulders, big hands, the Queenscove nose set under blue eyes. The man meant to love Kel wasn't him, it was his cousin.

He had never known emotional pain to be so consuming. His plans to approach Kel after her Ordeal to tell her of his true feelings fell apart. His dream of courting her, marrying her, starting a family with her all fell to the ground around him and shattered like fallen stars on the flagstone floor of the Chamber of Ordeal. But as he stared at her in his cousin's arms, he could see her absolute happiness. He would have loved her good and well for all of her days but he wasn't the man that she needed. The reality settled like a cage around his heart. His decision made already without conscious effort. Kel's happiness meant more to him than his own.

This time when he cried, it was a release of everything he had been holding in since his brothers had died. He cried for the things he had lost: past, present, and future. It emptied out of him. He let go of his hold on himself. And then when he had no more tears to shed, he stood and looked to the iron door that remained shut. A whisper of the scent of lily and green tea caressed his nose. He knew that smell as well as he knew that Kel smelled of weapon polish, cider, and trees. The sound of a fan opening passed his ear. The whisper of silk on stone floors. Before he could think on it too much, the iron door gave the tiniest clank as it opened.

He stepped out into his knight mistress's hold and gazed out across the crowd. There in the back was Kel standing firm. The woman he would always love and always value above himself. But his eyes were drawn to the bright figure next to her, a plump Yamani woman who had also spent the day before distracting him. Before he knew it they were walking towards the back, towards Kel and Yuki. He felt himself stop as he turned to look at the young Yamani lady. A question arose to his mind. Would Yuki ever consider him? He saw it flash in her eyes then, a flicker of the same fire that had been surging in Kel's eyes in the Chamber. Then she reached down and took hold of the steel fan that was in her obi and offered it to him base first. He took it and as the cold metal bit into his palm he made yet another vow. He would stoke that flicker of a fire and perhaps he and Yuki could have something to hold a candle to what Kel and Dom were destined for.

Later that evening as he readied himself to go out and be knighted, he put Yuki's shukusen in his belt, visible for all of the world to see. He had made vows today, many vows. He had vowed to use everything in his power to protect those that he loved. He had vowed to help Kel and Dom find each other properly. And he had vowed to make Yuki his. He would be passionate about her. He would love her the way she deserved to be loved. And in his aching heart, he knew that it also meant he had vowed to really let Kel go.

**A/N: I hope no one hates me for stepping on the N/Y relationship a bit. I'm not saying this is how I believe it happened or that Neal never truly loved Yuki. This is simply one of many thousands of takes on the story. I appreciate all reads/reviews/ and favorites.**

**Also if anyone would like to see something in my take, I'm very much open to writing prompts. Actually, right now I'd welcome them.**


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